Disingenuousness by Cook

Reader comment on: Apple Versus the FBI

Submitted by John Gillis (United States), Feb 18, 2016 18:35

I agree with the editor that there are concerns that any reasonable person would weigh on both sides of this fight. And I am constantly an opponent of government power and overreach.

However, in reading through the statement by Apple, and the order by the judge, Apple seems to be making a disingenous argument about software. It strikes me, having had some significant background in software, that Apple could pretty easily make a change in their software to open that phone uniquely. The idea that any effort that Apple made to accomodate the one-off need to get at the contents of this phone is doomed to result in a world-wide compromise of the security of iPhones, makes little sense to me. And even if they could convince me of that, what about simply taking the phone in question and going to some super-secret Apple lab and having one of the Apple guys who knows about the innards of the phone software, simply undoing the auto-destruct feature on that unique phone and then handing it over to the FBI to crack the code of the phone. Such a procedure would require no relinquishing of any secrets of how the software works, nor involves any un-encryption.

This issue is currently an imperfect case since there is no ticking time bomb (that we know of) in play. But when that does happen, what will Mr. Cook's attitude be? Let the innocent victims of the bomb fry?? And given that the phone belongs to the County, and the terrorist is dead and has no "privacy rights", the attitude of Apple is pretty appalling.

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